Android, "marketing" strategies and the difficult art of talking to people

After about one month from its appearance on the Android Market, blueBill Mobile experienced more than 150 downloads and a 50% of active installs. I'm using this project also to learn new things about the way to communicating to end users. In fact, from this point of view blueBill Mobile is very different from blueMarine (my other project targeted at end customers): people installing an open source application on their desktop, even if they are not computer professionals, are generally speaking more computer-oriented than people using a smartphone - a differentiation that will grow in future, looking at how Apple, that's leading the way in this field, is targetting its iPhone and iPad stuff (furthermore, blueMarine seems to interest specially the Linux guys, that are by selection more computer savvy than regular people). blueBill Mobile is targeted at birdwatchers and making their lives easier. Thus, usability is a crucial point and I must be careful not to think too much "as an engineer". Don't underestimate this point. As engineers, software and technology people we tend to consider us very smart and capable to solve problems. This is mostly true, but often our solutions work in our field, still they aren't the most natural ones for regular people. Take this personal short story: I've been a birdwatcher and photographer for years and I presumed I knew pretty well which the "user requirements" are; thus, ...

Date: June, 12 2010
Url: http://www.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici/archive/2010/06/12/android-marketing-strategies-and-difficult-art-talk-people

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